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Soul, then, in the same way, is intent upon a task of its own;
alike in its direct course and in its divagation it is the cause
of all by its possession of the Thought of the First Principle:
thus a Law of Justice goes with all that exists in the Universe
which, otherwise, would be dissolved, and is perdurable because
the entire fabric is guided as much by the orderliness as by the
power of the controlling force. And in this order the stars, as
being no minor members of the heavenly system, are co-operators
contributing at once to its stately beauty and to its symbolic
quality. Their symbolic power extends to the entire realm of
sense, their efficacy only to what they patently do.
For our part, nature keeps us upon the work of the Soul as long
as we are not wrecked in the multiplicity of the Universe: once
thus sunk and held we pay the penalty, which consists both in the
fall itself and in the lower rank thus entailed upon us: riches
and poverty are caused by the combinations of external fact.
And what of virtue and vice?
That question has been amply discussed elsewhere: in a word,
virtue is ours by the ancient staple of the Soul; vice is due to
the commerce of a Soul with the outer world.
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